WASHINGTON -- The Democratic Party thought it had received a gift from above this fall when the Republicans trotted out their 10-point "Contract with America" and accompanying pledges to slash committees and committee staffs, audit Congress' books and otherwise assault business-as-usual if they took control of Capitol Hill.The contract, the Democrats said, was nothing more than boiled-over Reaganism featuring such old conservative turkeys as a balanced budget constitutional amendment, a presidential line-item veto and congressional term limits.

The predictions of big gains for the GOP in November's elections have brought on inevitable comparisons to the Newt Gingrich-led Republican revolution of 1994, and those comparisons got stronger today with the House Republican leadership's release of its "Pledge to America," an obvious echo of the "Contract with America" of 16 years ago. But if the "Pledge" is an echo of its predecessor, it is a weak one. Putting aside the question of whether the...

SALISBURY -- Scott and Gail Anderson think the new Congress is proceeding on the right course, in the right direction and at about the right speed.But the Republican couple fears possible cuts to Medicare. They don't favor an all-out end to affirmative action. Most of all, they worry that their party -- "like one of the characters in the Wizard of Oz," quips Ms. Anderson -- may have lost its heart."In the rush to the right," says Mr. Anderson, a management consultant, "I hope we don't lose track of helping people who want help."

In a recent letter to shareholders, Dr. Thomas Hall shared a favored maxim: "Good things come to those who wait."The waiting does seem over for the company he runs, Medical Advisory Systems Inc., thanks largely to the explosion of the Internet and people's hunger for information about the aches and ills they suffer.Calvert County-based Medical Advisory Systems grabbed hold of both trends late last year when it agreed to provide Web site operator America's Doctor with physicians to conduct free, private, real-time "chats" online.

By Karen Hosler and Karen Hosler,Washington Bureau of The Sun | April 8, 1995

WASHINGTON -- With the trappings of power normally reserved for presidents, Speaker Newt Gingrich went on national television last night to tell America the House Republicans' legislative success so far was merely a prelude to the battle ahead over remaking the government."

AS HOUSE REPUBLICANS took the plunge yesterday, passing a balanced budget bill purporting to cut taxes by $245 billion and hold down growth in Medicare spending by $270 billion over seven years, the initials BTU were a verb all over Capitol Hill. As in, "I don't want to get BTU'd by this legislation." What goes on here is a fear in some but not all GOP circles that the highly ideological stand imposed by the Gingrich leadership could make Republican candidates vulnerable to Democratic attacks in next year's elections.

CONGRESSIONAL Republicans' so-called "Contract with America" signals an intensification of hostility, racism and indifference to the socio-economic and educational needs of racial minorities and the poor.The Republican high command -- which is led by the incoming-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich -- has determined that the Nov. 8th election results provide a mandate to dismantle progressive legislation that was passed over the past generation to give assistance to the poor and minorities, a disproportionate number of whom are poor.

Washington -- SEVERAL THEMES run through the Contract With America: promotion of free markets, objection to government regulation, concern for the middle class.But when it comes to the passage on reforming securities law, the contract is oddly in conflict with those objectives.Adam Smith, in the most famous sentence in economic literature, said that "it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

THEY'RE ALREADY in New Hampshire, a pride of Republicans smelling victory in 1996, and getting ready for the first-in-the-nation primary one year from now. The first likely victim of the campaign season: What's up till now been remarkable party unity on Capitol Hill.To be sure, the nine candidates who gathered at a Granite State GOP fund-raiser last weekend all put out bait any Republican voter would snatch up -- less government, fewer taxes, reduced regulation. Only on the divisive question of abortion did different candidates appeal to different constituencies inside the Republican Party.

WASHINGTON -- For all the talk about how the loss of five Republican seats in the House was the undoing of Speaker Newt Gingrich, in the end it was the recognition of so many of his colleagues that the face -- and voice -- he put on the Republican Party was too great a burden for it to bear heading toward the next presidential election.Also, it was their awareness that a less divisive figure than Mr. Gingrich was needed to pull the party together and construct an effective legislative agenda.

WEST CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. -- Newt Gingrich almost cost the congressman here his job two years ago. The other evening, the new Newt came to try to save it.In the '96 campaign, freshman Republican Jon D. Fox, under attack as a "Gingrich robot," did all he could to disown the unpopular House speaker. He managed to squeak back into office by 84 votes in the closest House election in the country.The other night, though, he embraced Gingrich effusively, calling him "the best speaker of the United States in our history."

WASHINGTON - Hot talk in the Senate the other day was that a volatile Republican privately referred to a female colleague as a "bitch." In the House, word had it that the Judiciary committee chairman called a congressman who challenged his honor a "son of a bitch."Meanwhile, in an open session with reporters, Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle questioned the motives of the Republican chairman investigating a disputed Democratic election.Majority Leader Trent Lott shot back, also in public, that the Democrats ought to "grow up a little bit; any time they don't get their way, [they]

By Karen Hosler and Karen Hosler,SUN NATIONAL STAFF | January 26, 1996

The feverishly energetic House Republican freshmen, who set out to prove they would be the first lawmakers in memory to deliver what they promised, arrived at a midterm retreat in Baltimore yesterday in a humbler mood.By dint of their number, unity and refusal to compromise, the 73 newcomers altered the political landscape in Washington. They dictated the debate, forced Democrats as well as Republicans to move seriously toward erasing deficits and even got the Democratic president to pronounce their own mantra -- "The era of big government is over."

AS HOUSE REPUBLICANS took the plunge yesterday, passing a balanced budget bill purporting to cut taxes by $245 billion and hold down growth in Medicare spending by $270 billion over seven years, the initials BTU were a verb all over Capitol Hill. As in, "I don't want to get BTU'd by this legislation." What goes on here is a fear in some but not all GOP circles that the highly ideological stand imposed by the Gingrich leadership could make Republican candidates vulnerable to Democratic attacks in next year's elections.

Washington. -- The first hundred days of the Republican majority in Congress have almost entered mythology. Looking back, we tend to recall House Republican troops marching in lock step to enact the Contract With America (Senate disappointments would come later).But as ''Inside the Republican Revolution,'' a PBS documentary to air tonight, reminds us, the outcome was not so certain at the time.Producer-director Michael Pack was able to take his cameras pretty much everywhere during those hundred days.

The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives comes eyeball to eyeball with reality this week. We predict it will blink. Members must vote on imposing term limits on themselves. They won't.This breach of the "Contract with America" will come on one of four versions of term limits representatives will vote on. It is a Democratic version, designed to reveal to the nation just how phony the contract is, at least on this issue. It mandates a 12-year lifetime limit on service in the House -- and it is retroactive.

By Karen Hosler and Karen Hosler,SUN NATIONAL STAFF | January 26, 1996

The feverishly energetic House Republican freshmen, who set out to prove they would be the first lawmakers in memory to deliver what they promised, arrived at a midterm retreat in Baltimore yesterday in a humbler mood.By dint of their number, unity and refusal to compromise, the 73 newcomers altered the political landscape in Washington. They dictated the debate, forced Democrats as well as Republicans to move seriously toward erasing deficits and even got the Democratic president to pronounce their own mantra -- "The era of big government is over."

In contrast to the take-no-prisoners rhetoric that often characterized their past political forays, the Christian Coalition's Contract with the American Family suggests this 1.5 million member group recognizes the need for compromise on some issues.A notable instance: Rather than seeking an absolute ban on abortions, it calls only for laws restricting abortions in the last stages of pregnancy -- a move even many abortion-rights supporters may be willing to consider. As coalition chairman Ralph Reed noted before the contract was unveiled with fitting humility: "These are the Ten Suggestions.

Newt Gingrich is great on C-SPAN and flat out terrific on the Sunday morning network public affairs shows where he can parry and thrust, lob those verbal hand grenades and generally run hot at the mouth.But last night he brought his act to the cooler climes of prime time in an event without precedent for a House speaker and, in television terms, he simply was a player who wasn't quite ready.Before Mr. Gingrich tries to completely redesign government as promised, he needs to find a better camera team and director for his speeches about how he's going to do that.